Community Call to Power Project

[chrome-rome]

I like these 2 new policies (especially Imperialism) - nicely done guys.

One thing though, Fair Trade - I don't know if it's worth considering or even doable but how about doubling Luxury and\or strategic resources that are only traded through diplomacy. This would encourage trading which has died somewhat in CTP and falls in line with the term fair trade (though in theory the other party should get double too regardless of their policy... Fair Trade not Free Trade ).

Thanks for the update Nuukov

So Horem and I are working on the resource system now, including reinstating the luxuries. This may be something we look into, but what would the benefit be (the traded resources)? Do they have a purpose outside of diplomacy?

 

[rulner]

Trading your excess resource for another one could help with monopoly buildings or building units especially if you get double the quantity back. Yes granted it's only for a short amount of turns but still.
If you are a looking into this, then it might be worth looking into what happens to the monopoly buildings when the traded resource runs out.

 

[chrome-rome]

so that's one of the issues we will be addressing. Basically, we have the idea to make strategic only strategic (no iron, horse, coal, etc monopolies). The same will happen with the original luxuries (gems, marble, stone (technically ), etc). Only the bonus resources and a few new resources will be counted as monopolies. These will not be tradeable, for the reason you listed. It doesn't make sense to have a monopoly that is reliant on someone else.

 

[DocBuchanan]

My reasons for having more resources in game:
1) Flavor - It allows the player to experience different things each game
2) Difficulty - Add more resources, make them each provide less happiness or whatever they provide. The player has to reach more plots, increasing difficulty.
3) City Placement - More resources means players will have a harder time choosing where to place cities, but that cities will have the option to construct more unique resource buildings.
4) Realism - I'm all about realism. If it existed, I want to somehow mimic it. That's just me.

My two cents.

so that's one of the issues we will be addressing. Basically, we have the idea to make strategic only strategic (no iron, horse, coal, etc monopolies). The same will happen with the original luxuries (gems, marble, stone (technically ), etc). Only the bonus resources and a few new resources will be counted as monopolies. These will not be tradeable, for the reason you listed. It doesn't make sense to have a monopoly that is reliant on someone else.

 

[chrome-rome]

My reasons for having more resources in game:
1) Flavor - It allows the player to experience different things each game
2) Difficulty - Add more resources, make them each provide less happiness or whatever they provide. The player has to reach more plots, increasing difficulty.
3) City Placement - More resources means players will have a harder time choosing where to place cities, but that cities will have the option to construct more unique resource buildings.
4) Realism - I'm all about realism. If it existed, I want to somehow mimic it. That's just me.

My two cents.

I understand where you come from, but you must realize that when it come to a choice between realism and gameplay, gameplay should always win. With that in mind:

1) The flavor only applies when the resources - and the bonuses from them - are unique enough to qualify as different. Having 3 resources that have the exact same yields and the same building effects is not what I consider different.

2) Again goes to the diversity. Yes, we can add 10 resources to the game, but if they all do the same thing what's the point. Adding that many would dilute the happiness from luxuries to 3 (if not 2) per resource. At that amount, it's just best not to deal with them. If I'm adding empty bonuses, I'd rather clear them out for more meaningful effects.

3) The placement will be important, especially when the TSL is completed. Decimatus also talked long-term about a map script that would cluster certain resources together, so that any given player would have a monopoly of a certain resource. The only way to get the others would be through trade. Again, that's long term, but it will definitely help shape the course of a civilization.

Even though I don't agree with many of your comments, I do appreciate the feedback. I just think that, at the current state of the mod, fewer, but more important, resources are more important than many generic ones .

 

[nathanglevy]

Hi, I had a thought, I don't know if you'll like it, but this will allow trading monopoly luxury resources and still allow them to stay as strategic AND yet still be trad-able... Here's my idea:

1. Summary:
By building a monopoly building, basically have the building create a luxury resource for trade.

2. The system:
What I'm proposing is to change the monopoly system to create luxury resources from strategic resources, and by this essentially allow the trade of monopoly made luxuries. By trading the luxury, you're not giving up on any of your strategic resources per-say, but rather, you are sharing the luxury - the happiness you got from the monopoly. There are two ideas on how this would work:

• Monopoly size sets the quantity
  The amount of luxuries you could trade would be defined by the size of the monopoly building you have (say medium pearl would give you 2 trade-able "luxury pearls"). You could trade these with another civ or CS, and this would give them a bonus in happiness (or some other bonus we could think of). ALSO, you can have more than 1 luxury resource, having more makes the people more happy (say 1 luxury = 1 happiness).
• Monopoly size sets the quality <--- I like this idea more!
  The QUALITY luxury you could trade would be defined by the size of the monopoly building. A better quality resource would provide more happiness. This is how it would work: Say the player has a small monopoly building giving him low quality <luxury>. A medium sized monopoly building would REPLACE the previous small sized monopoly building. The requirement to build a medium would be 1 ADDITIONAL strategic resource to start building it + THE LOW_QUALITY_LUXURY (this is to prevent you from trading it then trying to upgrade, if you traded it away, you'll have to wait). When the building would be complete, it would require +1 more strategic resource so it would total at requiring 2 strategic. Since this building would replace the small one, it would give bigger gold/food/production bonus AND would give a new luxury "medium quality <luxury>". This new luxury resource would give +2 happiness instead of 1 and would be more desirable. Large monopoly would create "High quality", Huge monopoly would create "Elite quality", etc.

3. Why I think this would improve the game:
With this system, you can actually use the monopoly resources in trade without the strategic monopoly system getting screwed up... AND instead of having a bonus happiness from monopoly buildings, this happiness would be from the luxuries, something you could actively trade with other civs! Since the thing you are trading is a luxury, not an actual strategic resource, they can't build monopoly buildings with it, so only you get the gold/food/production bonus AND no complications with the game. ALSO, this is more realistic, since actual luxuries aren't "alligator", it's the stuff you make from it that makes sense! (Alligator hide products).

4. A few inquiries:
So I've got a few questions:
1) Is it possible to make "doubles" for resources? Like have strategic pearl and a luxury pearl? (maybe just change name, like I said, a product?)
2) Is it possible to have +2 happiness for having 2 luxury pearls, and +3 happiness for having 3 luxury pearls?
3) What do you think makes more sense, the quality one or the quantity?

Feed back is WELCOME!

 

[rulner]

@nathan
I like your idea alot - effectively getting manufactured goods from Monopoly buildings.

This concept could be expanded and could provide all sorts of possibilities. eg Imagine being able to trade\loan Tanks and other units via a monopoly building, (not sure that actually would happen in real life though) but still, having the ability to loan a unit for X turns would be cool. The PRP process might get complicated.
Or what if your monopoly building could provide a range of different products but you would have to select which one.
I know chrome... overcomplicating things... bad rulner

just a thought ...

 

[FiresForever]

@Nathan: yeah I do like the idea of this system- pearls giving pearl necklace luxury resource, alligator giving wallets luxury resource, etc from the monopoly buildings. Seems logical as the raw resources are usually not so luxury until its been worked into something, I don't know how much happiness a live alligator would give you

 

[nathanglevy]

I don't know how much happiness a live alligator would give you

You'd be surprised... I think I saw in Jackass The Movie a scene where the alligators made them very happy... They put the alligator in one of their parent's bathroom...

Anywho, yeah that was basically the idea, I felt it would be appropriate to make "strategic materials", such as alligators, into luxury items, which you could decide to trade. To make it interesting, we could have the "small monopoly" building produce "low-quality <resource>", the "medium monopoly" produce "medium-quality <resource>", and so on... The medium sized monopoly would replace the small monopoly building. It would require 1 resource to build and then would take 1 more on completion (the one the small one frees up by being replaced), in total 2 resource for a better quality product. We could make it so the better product gives +2 happiness, and the high quality +3, elite +4... You get the idea...

Also, I would name the luxuries like "leather products" or "cereals", nothing too specific.

I think I'll update this in my post up there...

@Rulner: I like the spank smiley, made me laugh .
Now about the idea for "lending tanks": How would that even be possible? It doesn't seem very realistic to me. Besides that, the idea of "lending" a tank would complicate things - what if it died? What if he declares war on you? That's what tanks are for, right? I can imagine a monopoly system where you trade resources and manufactured goods which could be of higher quality (and quantity) depending on your monopoly buildings. But those are resources, not units...

Maybe this would work with CSs?...

NOTE TO ALL: Edited my post up top with upgraded idea... Read it if you like ;D

 

[rulner]

Now about the idea for "lending tanks": How would that even be possible? It doesn't seem very realistic to me. Besides that, the idea of "lending" a tank would complicate things - what if it died? What if he declares war on you? That's what tanks are for, right? I can imagine a monopoly system where you trade resources and manufactured goods which could be of higher quality (and quantity) depending on your monopoly buildings. But those are resources, not units...

If he declares war on you then all trades are cancelled. Anyway it was more of a brainstorming idea, to see if it would evolve into something a bit more practical. I know it wasn't realistic but it would be more like a private contractor (ie the monopoly building) manufacturing tanks and they would lend it out for a price (mercs). the risk is that you may lose it, the advantage is that you will get XP when returned. If it acts as a resource then when it dies, the building effectively builds another one (minus any XP). I realise that the monopoly buildings will only be trading Luxuries now and not other resources so I guess this won't work here anyway but it might fall under the banner of a new idea for a building of some description.

(I knew I'll get to use this one day )

 

[nathanglevy]

@Rulner: Actually, the idea of mercs sounds much better. I'm not sure how this system would work, it could be that you can rent/buy mercenary units from CSs through a diplo building in your city. I think there is a mod for this though. But if this were to work via a monopoly building, who exactly are you getting this tank from? The building? Rather, I could see it as you said, like a merc, and if it dies you pay a penalty... Nice tank btw

 

[rulner]

@nathan - I think your idea to get it via a CS is better, as an extra from a militaristic CS. I think chrome mentioned that he was going to increase the spawn time so as an additional element, you could buy or lend a unit (probably buy) and the cost would differ depending on the relationship (friend or ally).

 

[DocBuchanan]

Swordsmiths
costs: 100 and 1 iron resource
Provides 5 sword resource

Swordsman
costs: 50 and 1 sword resource

Master Swordsmith
costs: 150
Requires Swordsmith
Replaces Swordsmith
Provides 2 sword resource
Any swordsman built in this city receives the "Gladius" promotion (increases strength by 20%)


___

Example above depicts a system where a resource on the map is treated as a raw material, is refined by a building, and then used to produce something else in the game. Also shows how the player could be given the choice to build quantity or quality using the same resource.
This is just an example but I see many applications.

 

[rulner]

@Doc - I like the idea but if you had this for every unit, it could get quite cumbersome. We already have a ton of buildings to build Perhaps the buildings could be classed the same as Units (eg Gunpowder) or was that what you had in mind?

 

[chrome-rome]

Spoiler :

Hi, I had a thought, I don't know if you'll like it, but this will allow trading monopoly luxury resources and still allow them to stay as strategic AND yet still be trad-able... Here's my idea:

1. Summary:
By building a monopoly building, basically have the building create a luxury resource for trade.

2. The system:
What I'm proposing is to change the monopoly system to create luxury resources from strategic resources, and by this essentially allow the trade of monopoly made luxuries. By trading the luxury, you're not giving up on any of your strategic resources per-say, but rather, you are sharing the luxury - the happiness you got from the monopoly. There are two ideas on how this would work:

• Monopoly size sets the quantity
  The amount of luxuries you could trade would be defined by the size of the monopoly building you have (say medium pearl would give you 2 trade-able "luxury pearls"). You could trade these with another civ or CS, and this would give them a bonus in happiness (or some other bonus we could think of). ALSO, you can have more than 1 luxury resource, having more makes the people more happy (say 1 luxury = 1 happiness).
• Monopoly size sets the quality <--- I like this idea more!
  The QUALITY luxury you could trade would be defined by the size of the monopoly building. A better quality resource would provide more happiness. This is how it would work: Say the player has a small monopoly building giving him low quality <luxury>. A medium sized monopoly building would REPLACE the previous small sized monopoly building. The requirement to build a medium would be 1 ADDITIONAL strategic resource to start building it + THE LOW_QUALITY_LUXURY (this is to prevent you from trading it then trying to upgrade, if you traded it away, you'll have to wait). When the building would be complete, it would require +1 more strategic resource so it would total at requiring 2 strategic. Since this building would replace the small one, it would give bigger gold/food/production bonus AND would give a new luxury "medium quality <luxury>". This new luxury resource would give +2 happiness instead of 1 and would be more desirable. Large monopoly would create "High quality", Huge monopoly would create "Elite quality", etc.

3. Why I think this would improve the game:
With this system, you can actually use the monopoly resources in trade without the strategic monopoly system getting screwed up... AND instead of having a bonus happiness from monopoly buildings, this happiness would be from the luxuries, something you could actively trade with other civs! Since the thing you are trading is a luxury, not an actual strategic resource, they can't build monopoly buildings with it, so only you get the gold/food/production bonus AND no complications with the game. ALSO, this is more realistic, since actual luxuries aren't "alligator", it's the stuff you make from it that makes sense! (Alligator hide products).

4. A few inquiries:
So I've got a few questions:
1) Is it possible to make "doubles" for resources? Like have strategic pearl and a luxury pearl? (maybe just change name, like I said, a product?)
2) Is it possible to have +2 happiness for having 2 luxury pearls, and +3 happiness for having 3 luxury pearls?
3) What do you think makes more sense, the quality one or the quantity?

Feed back is WELCOME!

Hmm, nathan you really make it hard to say no to an idea. I'll start with the easy stuff first:

4. A few inquiries:
So I've got a few questions:
1) Is it possible to make "doubles" for resources? Like have strategic pearl and a luxury pearl? (maybe just change name, like I said, a product?)
2) Is it possible to have +2 happiness for having 2 luxury pearls, and +3 happiness for having 3 luxury pearls?
3) What do you think makes more sense, the quality one or the quantity?

The answer to all three is that it is possible, but it is also a lot of work. There is a mod out there that specifically takes one resource and refines it into another. And adding luxuries of different quality and happiness is as simple as making different entries for each quality. The poor quality would have 1 happiness, the medium would get 2, etc. This can all be done in XML, but it will be extremely time-consuming *looks to rulner.* I personally like the quality system more, but if we were going for better diplomacy, quantity would be the better option, because as far as I know, you don't get bonuses for trading high value resources. So, I would go 1-small, 2-medium, 3-large, 4-huge, 8eek-monopoly (and maybe two resources, one for you, one for trade).

Now to the more abstract stuff:
The first thing is that you still want the strategic resources to be consumed by monopoly buildings. I know in you example you listed alligators and pearls, but I don't want to see any "real" strategics used (horse, oil, etc). If we can avoid that, then I will say that it is definitely plausible.

Second, I'm worried that this system will clash with the luxury resources present. I want to bring them back so that the player can feel like they can support their expansion "off-the-land" if you will. Although, to be completely fair, the luxury resources won't be able to sustain your empire forever, so alternative means of gathering happiness should be available. Lol, I think I just talked myself out of my own argument.

I will say this: I don't see this making it into this next version unless you can get a team of people working on it. Trust me when I say you don't want to try to do this with just one or two people; when I was redoing the monopolies (the first two times; this one with Horem will actually be my third), I was soooo bored. It's very repetitive business of copy+paste, change a few tags, copy+paste, and on and on. What you are talking about is adding 5 new resources for every monopoly building. Seriously, you are going to need a team.

Sigh, I was planning on trying to find fault with this, but I haven't been able to. I'll chalk it up to your amazing structure and the quality of the idea. I say go run with it.

@ rulner

I know chrome... overcomplicating things... bad rulner

I was definitely going to say that! Smh, I'm not that bad.

 

[FiresForever]

@ the idea: I like where this one is going, perhaps a better way would be to produce blueprint type objects that allows the building of a special unit. Maybe even link it to a wonder so there can be only one, eg archilles (spelling?) as a unique spearman unit

 

[rulner]

@chrome
*looks to rulner* - If the amount of time consuming stuff is what's putting you off then like I said, I'd be happy to do it with your guidance if that is the route you want to go down. but by the sounds of it, it's not and that's cool.

Regarding the , . I agree with your point entirely. Throwing too many things into the mix is asking for problems. Like you said, lets get the basics right. I think it's just that while the rest of us non-modders are in anticipation of the next release, we're throwing ideas around. (I still haven't given up on my free tanks yet )

 

[rulner]

@ the idea: I like where this one is going, perhaps a better way would be to produce blueprint type objects that allows the building of a special unit. Maybe even link it to a wonder so there can be only one, eg archilles (spelling?) as a unique spearman unit

Or instead of the Wonder, how about the BT. I still like the idea of getting a good bonus for getting to the BT first with a penalty attached to it. a unique unit or building which would do what you said above.

 

[chrome-rome]

@ rulner and nathan: I'm not one to promise things prematurely, but I will say that I see it very likely that this monopoly system will be employed at some point or another. The only contrary opinion was mine, and I even managed to convince myself while writing that it is a good idea. But, like I said, it will be time consuming, and I can't see a scenario where this will be ready for the next update. But if you all want to PM each other and/or other members to hash out the details (or even just post here), be my guest. Like I have said, you are going to need a team for this. Nathan, I think you should take the lead on this. After Nuukov and I hash out the policies and Horem and I get through the resources, I'll be happy to join in on the planning/modding.

 

[FiresForever]

rulner if you need a simple job to give you something to do before the next release then i have a good one i need help with. Basically it involves deciding what unit art to use from the WW2 packs and a lot of writing in the form eg:

Units/Art/WW2/UK/Carriers/Ark_Royal_Class/Ark_Royal_Class.gr2

Basically my laziness in setting up modbuddy for the CCTP mod has caused this time consuming problem when adding a lot of new files . Also, while choosing units is really cool it takes a while because there are so many choices

If you are interested pm me